Slate Belt's Bonnie Pysher and Elaine Pivinski of Franklin Hill Vineyards among few female winemakers in Pennsylvania

L. MT. BETHEL TWP. | Bonnie Pysher recently poured her pink, bubbly wine for hundreds of diners at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

The head winemaker at Franklin Hill Vineyards was invited there because judges in the National Women's Wine Competition liked her Harvest Berry wine.

Among the guests at the museum dinner were people educated by such noted winemaking programs as the one at the University of California--Davis and experts like Margrit Mondavi, considered a pioneer for women in the wine business.

And then there was Pysher, who hasn't had so much as a chemistry class to teach her about winemaking. She just started picking grapes one day.

"Everyone asks me how I got into winemaking," said Pysher, 48, one of only four female winemakers on record at the Pennsylvania Wine Association.

"I had twins," she explained. "I just wanted to get out of the house."

Rarity: Female owner, female winemaker

Pysher and Elaine Pivinski, owner of Franklin Hill Vineyards, say they may be the only female owner-maker tandem in the state.

Unionville Vineyards in East Amwell Township has a female co-owner and also won an award for making wine for women. But it has no female winemakers.

Those who answered at Alba Vineyard in Pohatcong Township and Amore Vineyards in East Allen Township said they had no female winemakers. Despite its name, Four Sisters Winery in White Township had no female winemakers, either.

Aside from Pysher and Pivinski, female winemakers and owners closest to the Lehigh Valley are Sarah Troxell at Galen Glen Vineyard in Schuylkill County and Joanne Levengood at Manatawny Creek Vineyards in Bucks County, according to the Pennsylvania Wine Association.

With more winemakers come more women

Pysher said those who drop off supplies at Franklin Hill are surprised to learn she's the winemaker.

But more women are getting into winemaking, said Jennifer Eckinger, of the state wine association. She bases this on information she gets for women's winemaking competitions. "There are more females getting involved," she said. "That's a trend."

Judith Oppenheimer, who runs the Women's Wine Competition in Santa Rosa, Calif., said more people in general are getting into winemaking, which means more women.

New college courses in winemaking and hospitality and restaurant management, she said, expose more people to winemaking as a career. "Women just didn't think about getting into it. But there's more exposure now," Oppenheimer said.

At first, a chance to make some extra money

Pysher got her first exposure when her twins were 3.

She had become pregnant months after she graduated from Bangor Area High School in 1979 and married the twins' father, Dean.

Pivinski started making wine in 1982 and asked Pysher to pick grapes. Pysher was eager to get outside and make extra money to support her son, Brian, and daughter, Jennifer. She accepted.

In 1985, as the vineyard struggled, Pivinski made Pysher head winemaker. Pysher learned on the job and kept it.

The award Pysher won earlier this year is a gold medal in a contest for female winemakers only. In one sense, it's just another trade award in an industry that gives out plenty. But it means more to Pysher.

"This one's special," she said, fingering the medal on her bottle of Harvest Berry, "because you have to be a woman to win it."